Statistical and Conceptual Approaches towards Multivariate Phenotypes

Monday: Lectures and practical application Jon Wright: The conceptual context of characterizing multivariate phenotypes, genotypes and functional units Niels Dingemanse: The evolutionary ecology of multivariate phenotypes Dirk Metzel: A comparison of Bayesian vs Frequentist vs approaches in statistics Alastair Wilson: Multivariate quantitative genetics. Partitioning correlations within vs. between individuals, and between-individual correlations in G and PE. Implementation of exploratory factor analysis in multivariate mixed models. Modelling platform: ASREML/R or MCMCglmm Geir Bolstad: Demonstration of R-package “evolvability” - tools for understanding multivariate genetic variation and effects on rates and directions of evolution Tuesday: Lectures and practical application Yimen Araya-Ajoy: Multi-level multivariate phenotypic variation (i.e. within vs. between individuals) Geir Bolstad: Analyses of allometry; Random regressions in ontogenetic allometry, relationships between ontogenetic, static, and evolutionary allometry. Ned Dochtermann: Multivariate hypothesis testing: when to use confirmatory factor analysis vs. PCA, path analyses and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) Wednesday: excursion Thursday: Student Introductory Presentations + Working on own data Friday: Working on own data + Student presentations of preliminary results Speaker Prof. Jonathan Wright, Dr. Geir Hysing Bolstad, Dr. Thor Harald Ringsby and Dr. Irja Ratikainen (Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Prof. Ned. A. Dochtermann (North Dakota State University), Dr. Alastair Wilson (University of Exeter), Prof. Dr. Dirk Metzler (Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich), Prof. Niels J. Dingemanse, PhD-candidate Yimen Araya-Ajoy (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology)